The Wilderness Society's Tim Seelig said Queensland could again become the tree clearing capital of Australia.

"We need to make sure our native bushland, koalas and endangered species get the very best protection, but the changes do the exact opposite."

Despite earlier posturing, the federal government could be powerless to stop Queensland opening up 440,000 hectares of parks and reserves to grazing, he said.

Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke says he doesn't have the full range of powers that were available when he stopped the Victorian government from "trampling" the Alpine National Park.

"If I'm unable to block the Newman government on this occasion, then I will be obtaining advice to see what can be changed to prevent this sort of cowboy behaviour from ever happening again," he said.

AAP

28 comments

Shame, Shame, Shame, Joe Ludwig and Julia Gillard.

Commenter

FJohn

Location

Brisbane

Date and time

May 21, 2013, 5:59PM

Joe Ludwig? Julia Gillard? Really intriguing how they could get a guernsey in the context of this story.

Commenter

Peter Allan

Location

Brisbane

Date and time

May 21, 2013, 9:36PM

Really FJohn? Are you deluded? Cattle in national parks by definition renders them no longer national parks. By definition they are supposed to be protected from introduced species!! I am not a greenie by a long shot but letting cattle trample these areas is truly insane. How on earth is it Gillard's fault?

Are you just one of those blinded, rusted on right wing nutters that has to blame the ALP for everything?

Commenter

Neal

Location

Cairns

Date and time

May 21, 2013, 11:34PM

@ Peter Allen, do a bit of research, won't take much effort.

Commenter

FJ

Date and time

May 22, 2013, 8:22AM

I cant say I know the impact this will have , but if Feral animals have an impact on the Australian bush , would it be fair to say the Cattle in National Parks would have some sort of impact too. Having said that I thought the recent rain might have mitigated the onset of a drought for a number of years, obviously it hasn't . Perhaps our state Government needs to start putting in place other plans to manage the effects of drought as our weather changes , though we did not really do too much when I worked in Government . I just sort of feel things might have been better managed to have prevented the cattle getting to this stage

Commenter

Bob Menzies

Location

Beenleigh

Date and time

May 21, 2013, 6:03PM

"Better manage the cattle" if it wasn't for Gillard and Ludwig's live cattle ban a large % of these cattle would have been sent overseas.

Commenter

FJ

Location

Brisbane

Date and time

May 22, 2013, 5:23AM

they are in this condition because the do gooders had the live export market shut down and there is no market to sell them and the cost to transport them south is too high. These so called national parks are mostly old stations that have been left to regrowth. this will help in fire prevention to get rid of some of the under growth after all every bush fire contributes more co2 to the atmosphere than all our other industry's combined

Commenter

max

Location

qld

Date and time

May 22, 2013, 5:36AM

thanks for the comments and I have read the others , but I am not convinced this is the right decision by this Government

Commenter

Bob Menzies

Location

Beenleigh

Date and time

May 22, 2013, 11:37AM

So if farmers are grazing their cattle in national parks, do the public get a cut of the farmers' profits? After all, their cows will eat publicly owned grass at the expense of conservation because they couldn't manage their stock numbers on their own farm properly

Commenter

bayman

Date and time

May 21, 2013, 6:05PM

We were managing our stock numbers until Gillard came in and put on a ban and destroyed the export industry.